


Later!

by sheila_amour



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me By Your Name - All Media Types
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Future Fic, M/M, light and sappy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-21
Updated: 2018-09-21
Packaged: 2019-07-15 02:04:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16053155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheila_amour/pseuds/sheila_amour
Summary: A glimpse of a morning in the life of Oliver and Elio, circa 1997.





	Later!

**Author's Note:**

> this has been hanging out in my google docs since march so i figured why not finish it up and toss it on here.

1997

“Later!”

A quick kiss brushes Elio’s cheek. He picks up his mug with his right hand, the left clutching a newspaper and responds with a ‘love you too’ without looking up from an article on a massacre in Algeria. The apartment door shuts with a quick ‘bang’ before Elio remembers to ask Oliver if he remembers the dinner they're supposed to be at tonight at the Johnson’s. He looks up at the door and sighs. He’ll call and remind him later. He looks down at his watch, a birthday present from two years ago, sleek and black and engraved on the inside. It reads 7:03. Still a few hours until he has to be to the studio. He groans, silently cursing Oliver for opting to take the early course this semester, though Oliver always maintained that it wasn't much of a choice. 

“You're the best professor they have there, they ought to let you pick,” he'd grumbled when Oliver had told him his first class would start 8 AM.

Oliver had laughed at that a little, running his fingers through Elio's curls. “Take it up with Doctor Blake,” he'd said and Elio said that he might have to.

Oliver then nudged his shoulder, joking that he didn’t know what Elio was upset about anyway; he was the one who had to be out of the place by seven in the morning.

Elio responded that it did matter because, after all, who was going to have to tie his tie and force at least a semblance of a breakfast down his throat before he bolted out the door, late as ever?

Oliver had told him he didn’t have to do that, assuring Elio he was a grown man who could look after himself.

“I know that,” Elio said. He had shrugged, playing nonchalance; a charade Oliver had long since learned to see through. Oliver had taken his jaw gently and kissed his lips and that was the end of that discussion.

Getting up at six thirty was hell though, it really was. He hadn't gotten up this early since his university days. The first problem was he couldn't prepare a breakfast that was any more than a cup of black coffee. Back when his first class wasn't until eleven Oliver would buy strawberry pastries from a bakery down the block, but they both knew that getting Oliver out of the house by seven o’clock would be a feat in and of itself, and there would be no time for pastries along the way.

Elio remembers joking that it was probably better off that way, that all that sugar was going to make him fat. 

That would always make Oliver laugh. “You?” he'd say, grabbing him by the sensitive places on his hips he knew were ticklish, “why you'll always be as thin as a rail.” 

That was usually the moment when Oliver would come at him, pinning him down on the couch, Elio trying to fight back in between bouts of laughter. Elio always smiles when he remembers those mornings.

They were nice memories but they didn't solve the problem of the damn breakfast. His first thought was to all those years back in Italy and Oliver’s love of Mafalda’s eggs. He'd rung his mother and asked her if she remembered the recipe and she had laughed and told him boiling eggs wasn't that hard to do. His mother lied. The eggs were a mess. 

He tried to do it as she described but he could never get it quite right and the eggs either went straight to the garbage or got scrambled over a too-brown toast. Oliver never complained but Elio knew there was only so long a man could eat crappy eggs on burnt toast before they started to seriously question their life’s choices, namely why they put up with someone who made them crappy eggs and burnt toast for breakfast.

The second thought, and the inevitable winner, was yogurt and fruit. There was a good market nearby where Oliver liked to shop and Elio would have him pick out fruit while he was getting the weeks groceries. He cut up the fruit in the mornings while Oliver showered and mixed them in with a container of yogurt into a bowl, ready to hand it over to Oliver with a cup of coffee as well. It was easy, it was healthy, and it wasn’t eggs or toast so Elio thinks it’s fair to call it a win. He’s had no complaints from Oliver, either. 

Oliver later told him that he still loved him though he couldn’t cook worth a damn, but he couldn’t promise that he hadn’t started shoveling eggs into the garbage when he knew Elio wasn’t looking. 

Elio, however, was much better at tying a tie and smoothing down hair than he was in the kitchen, thank god. Oliver knew how to tie a tie, of course; you don’t get through years of prep school without the motions becoming nothing short of mechanical. Elio likes to do it anyway. It makes him feel helpful and useful and Oliver doesn’t mind so he does it every morning. 

(It's also a good way to get a kiss from Oliver before he has to leave for the day.)

The rest of the morning includes Oliver fixing his cufflinks, preparing his papers, and getting his keys. Sometimes this is the point where he realizes he's forgotten something, usually a book or some papers and has to dash back into the bedroom to grab them. Elio is usually at the table with his coffee and newspaper, shouting at Oliver that he left the papers on the dresser; he always leaves them there.

Oliver shoves the papers in his bag as quickly as possible, usually a minute or two past seven by this time, and rushes to get to the door. He stops only for a second to give Elio a kiss on the cheek, his way of saying ‘I love you,’ before he's out the door and off to work, tossing a ‘later’ behind as the door slams.

That ‘later’ had come about in an odd sort of way. When they got back together Oliver’s ‘later’ still remained, but not so much as it had when they were in Italy. Instead it reemerged as a joke somewhere along the line; something kept solely between the two of them. Once when they were at a dinner party Oliver had to leave early to grade some papers, but before leaving he kissed Elio and said “later,” waving as he left him at the table, his smile apologetic. After he left Mrs. Henry, the woman to his left, questioned him. 

“Later?” she'd asked, “That's not much of a way to say goodbye.” And Elio had only said “It's kind of an inside joke,” unable to stop smiling.

**Author's Note:**

> if ur thinking is it really possible to fuck up eggs that badly? the answer is yes


End file.
